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IN  MEMORIAM 
FLORIAN  CAJORI 


The  Natural  and  the  Supernatural. 


BACCALAUREATE  SERMON 


DELIVERED  TO  THE  GRADUATING  CLASS 


UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN, 


June  17th,  1883. 


cro IK  nsr 


MILWAUKEE : 

CRAMER,  AIKENS  &  CRAMER,  PRINTERS. 
1883. 


THE  NATURAL  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL 


-Job,  32-18  :     For  I  am  full  of  matter,  the  spirit  within  me  constraineth  me. 

The  voluntary  powers  of  men  do  not  work  like  a 
finished  machine,  evenly  and  certainly,  but  fitfully 
and  hesitatingly,  like  a  machine  not  yet  perfected. 
Two  opposed  tendencies,  each  of  a  faulty  character, 
constantly  arise  in  the  use  of  our  faculties.  Men, 
instead  of  believing  the  truth  and  that  only,  believe 
either  more  than  the  truth  or  less  than  the  truth, 
;and  find  great  difficulty  in  settling,  in  their  convic- 
tions, due  north,  like  the  needle  of  an  ideal  com- 
pass. We  shall  escape  this  vacillating  movement 
only  as  our  powers  become  more  obedient  to  the 
great  currents  of  truth,  and  are  less  swayed  by  sur- 
rounding circumstances. 

In  religion  this  oscillating  movement  has  reached 
in  our  time  an  unusually  extreme  character,  and  the 
point  which  divides  affirmation  from  denial  pertains 
to  the  natural  and  supernatural.  This  question, 
always  an  interesting  one  in  religion,  has  now  be- 
come the  centre  of  belief  and  of  unbelief,  which, 
like  the  twins  Esau  and  Jacob,  struggle  for  priority. 
If  we  rightly  understand  terms,  and  confine  the 
natural,  as  we  should  do,  to  the  things  and  forces  of 
the  physical  world,  determinate  in  all  their  action, 


while  we  designate  as  supernatural  those  flexible, 
changeable  powers,  by  which  spirit  rises  above  mat- 
ter, then  this  division  is  vital  to  religion.  All  that 
_wars  against  the  supernatural  wars  against  religion. 
Religion  finds  a  rational  place  in  men's  thoughts 
and  conduct  by  virtue  only  of  the  supernatural;  by 
virtue  of  powers  both  in  man  and  in  God  which 
control  nature.  If  there  is  no  prevasive  spiritual 
presence  in  the  world,  but  only  a  bed-rock  of  phys- 
ical law,  all  the  duties  and  promises  of  religion  are 
misdirected.  Its  alleged  realm  is  only  one  more  fan- 
ciful region  peopled  by  malignant  and  by  benevolent 
sprites  of  the  imagination.  All  these  creations  must 
vanish  before  the  clear  daylight  of  knowledge.  The 
controversy  between  faith  and  scepticism  hinges 
here.  Are  there  any  supernatural  elements  in  the 
world  ?  Are  we  placed  flatly,  firmly  down  on  naked 
physical  facts  and  inflexible  laws  to  settle  our  fort- 
unes with  them,  or,  rather,  to  have  our  fortunes  set- 
tled by  them?  -Or  have  we  nobler  incentives  and 
the  aid  of  higher  powers  wherewith  to  achieve  our 
fortunes  ?  We  must  first  look  a  little  more  closely 
at  these  two  terms  in  the  make-up  of  the  world- 
physical  force  and  spiritual  power — before  we  can 
pronounce  between  them,  decide  whose  is  the  in- 
heritance, or  on  what  principles  it  is  to  be  divided. 
The  younger  of  the  two  conceptions,  that  of  phys- 
ical law,  has  entered  a  claim  at  the  tribunal  of  reason 
for  the  entire  estate,  and  has  given  a  retaining  fee  to 
science.  The  older  of  the  two  ideas  is  setting  up  a 
defense,  partly  of  possession,  and  partly  of  right,. 


with  a  wavering  appeal  to  philosophy  for  aid.  There 
is,  in  this  strife,  no  disparagement  either  of  science 
or  of  philosophy.  They  are  two  dogs  of  the  same 
breed,  growling  and  bristling  over  their  respective 
treasures.  Says  science,  setting  forth  the  claim  of 
its  client :  Everything,  be  it  oxygen  or  iron,  plant 
or  man,  is  endowed  with  its  own  properties  beyond 
.all  modification,  increase  or  diminution.  Each  has 
its  range  of  manifestations,  according  to  the  circum- 
stances under  which  it  is  found;  and  though  this 
range  may  be  very  extended,  it  is  none  the  less  set- 
tled in  every  portion  of  it.  The  essential  idea  of  the 
world  is,  that  it  is  fixed ;  that  in  itself  it  stands  fast 
forever ;  that  all  its  phases  are  merely  passing  mani- 
festations of  energies  that  are  essentially  unchange- 
able and  indestructible.  Fixedness,  fate,  the  irrev- 
ocable, this  is  the  rational  force  of  things,  and  more 
and  more  so,  as  we  distinctly  understand  them. 
Their  exceedingly  complex  involutions  and  evolu- 
tions do  not  in  the  least  soften  this  severe  fact.-  A 
machine  of  one  hundred  wheels  is  no  less  a  machine 
than  one  of  ten  wheels. 

Nature  taken  by  itself,  has  nothing  to  say,  either 
•of  a  beginning  or  an  end ;  nothing  to  say  about  any 
change  exterior  to  itself  by  which  it  has  been  made, 
or  can  be  made,  better  or  worse ;  by  which  it  can  be 
either  held  back  from  accomplishing  what  is  in  it,  or 
pushed  forward  to  do  what  is  not  in  it.  Everything 
is  settled,  finished,  provided  for,  and  the  evolution  of 
its  forces  and  revolution  of  its  wheels  are  things  to 
be  contemplated  in  silent  awe  and  wonder. 


All  that  mind  can  do  with  the  simply  natural,  is 
to  reflect  it,  as  the  lake  reflects  the  heavens  without 
having  any  part  in  their  construction.  With  this 
work  of  reflection,  presentation  and  explanation r 
thought  is  busy.  If  thought  admits,  for  a  moment, 
that  anything  is  uncertain,  vacillating,  without  lawr 
that  thing  becomes  to  it  at  once  a  phantom,  and  no 
part  of  the  substantial  frame-work  of  things.  This 
is  bold  language,  and  science  utters  it  resoundingly, 
and  finds  itself  infinitely  magnified  by  its  means. 
And  well  it  may,  for  it  expresses  ajyery^great  truth, 
though  not  the  entire  jruth.^ 

~~Against  this  plea  for  the  pervasive  presence  of 
physical  law,  which  the  authority  of  science  seems 
at  first  sight  to  sustain,  philosophy  puts  in  a  timid 
rejoinder.  There  are  powers  of  comprehension  and 
action  in  man  that  lie  outside  of  physical  forces,  that 
are  in  reference  to  nature  supernatural ;  by  these  he 
acts  upon  nature  and  controls  it.  He  inquires^  into 
truth,  he  apprehends  truth,  he  conceives  a  purpose, 
he  shapes  things  towards  that  purpose.  The  consid- 
eration, the  purpose  and  the  pursuit  are  not  them- 
selves products  of  nature,  are  not  the  last  stages  of 
its  own  forces,  but  are  the  first  stages  of  a  truly  inde- 
pendent life  that  rises  above  it.  The  natural  is  the 
plain,  but  the  supernatural  is  the  man  that  stands 
upon  it,  tills  its  fields,  and  plucks  its  fruits  and  reaps 
its  harvests,  and  makes  them  all  minister  to  a  life  of 
his  own.  The  supernatural,  therefore,  involves  a 
beginning  and  an  end;  a  perpetual  beginning  and 
ending  of  many  things,  the  springing  up  of  pur- 


poses,  their  accomplishment  or  their  failure.  Men- 
tal facts  are  no  longer  fixed,  but  flexible.  Our  spir- 
itual life  is  not  simply  a  complex  combination  of 
forces  holding  on  their  way  between  two  eternities; 
it  is  a  new  energy  other  than  and  higher  than  all 
previous  ones;  it  is  supernatural.  Words,  as  in  this 
instance,  win  for  themselves,  in  their  happy  use,  a 
territory  of  thought  with  natural  bounds  of  its  own. 
They  are  not  in  their  meanings  like  the  limits  of  a 
farm,  with  fixed  angles  and  arbitrary  distances,  but 
like  those  of  a  kingdom,  which  lie  along  water 
courses,  skirt  the  ocean,  or  meet  neighboring  terri- 
tory on  a  mountain  ridge.  It  is  important  that  we 
so  define  words  as  to  conform  to  these  natural  dis- 
tinctions which  call  for  expression. 

By  the  nature  of  a  thing,  we  mean  its  qualities  or 
methods  of  action,  that  which  is  fixed  in  it  rather 
than  that  which  is  changeable.  The  most  fixed 
things  in  the  world  are  physical  properties  and  ener- 
gies, and  these,  therefore,  are,  in  the  strictest  sense, 
natural ;  nature  is  made  up  of  them  as  its  first  fun- 
damental terms.  While  we  may  speak  of  the  nature 
of  man,  and  the  nature  God,  and  the  nature  of  a 
miracle,  we  do  it  by  license,  not  implying  thereby 
the  same  settled  constitution  that  we  do  in  referring 
to  the  nature  of  the  physical  world.  When  we 
speak  of  nature  pre-eminently,  we  mean  the  physical 
world,  as  the  best  example  of  that  which  is,  through 
and  through,  thoroughly  natural ;  that  is,  determin- 
ate in  its  qualities  and  settled  in  its  interactions. 

There   is  a  higher  nature,  the  spiritual   and    free 


8 

nature  in  man  ;  and  a  still  higher  nature,  the  infinite 
and  free  nature  of  God.  If  we  are  to  use  the  word 
supernatural  in  contrast  with  the  natural,  then  man 
and  God  should  go  together  as  supernatural,  not  as 
lacking  nature,  but  as  not  bound  down  to  an  inflexi- 
ble and  invariable  nature.  The  contrast  lies  between 
a  fixed  nature  on  the  one  side,  and  a  flexible  or  free 
one  on  the  other. 

This  line  of  division  holds  not  between  nature 
and  man  on  the  one  side  and  God  on  the  other,  but 
between  physical  action  on  the  one  side,  and  spirit- 
ual action  on  the  other ;  between  physical  forces  and 
rational  activities.  It  is  not  a  harsh  figure  to  call, 
therefore,  rational  activities  whether  found  in  God 
or  in  man,  supernatural ;  above  the  natural,  because 
they  are  constantly  occupied  in  overlooking  and 
guiding  the  physical  forces  which  lie,  as  it  were, 
beneath  them.  The  bounds  of  the  two  kingdoms 
are  here.  On  the  one  side  all  things  are  fixed ;  on 
the  other,  all  are  fluent,  moving  forward  toward  the 
ultimate  adjustments  of  reason.  Here,  then,  we  have 
made  up  an  issue.  Is  man,  in  his  higher  powers, 
supernatural?  If  he  is  not,  we  have  no  sufficient 
proof  of  any  supernatural  term  in  the  world.  To 
assume  one  wholly  beyond  the  world,  still  leaving 
man  immersed  in  nature,  dealing  with  nature,  dealt 
with  by  nature,  and  wholly  dependent  on  it,  is  not  only 
to  have  a  God  a-far  off,  but  so  far  off  that  it  is  quite 
useless  to  call  upon  him.  Whether  he  is  or  is  not,  is  a 
speculative  inquiry  of  no  practical  interest,  involv- 
ing a  fact  of  impossible  affirmation.  A  Supreme 


Presence  that  is  to  give  redemption  to  man's  thought 
must  be  a  pervasive  presence,  a  presence  and  power 
which  man  encounters  in  his  daily  life.  That  the 
supernatural,  in  the  history  of  the  human  mind,  has 
had  deep  hold  upon  it,  none  can  deny.  Men  have 
believed  the  assertion  that  there  is  a  spirit  in  man ; 
.and  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  him 
understanding.  They  have  felt  at  times,  as  Elihu 
felt :  I  am  full  of  matter,  and  the  spirit  within  .  me 
•constraineth  me. 

Our  present  purpose  is  to  maintain  the  validity  of 
the  supernatural,  and  to  point  out  some  of  its  rela- 
tions to  the  natural.  If  there  is  properly  a  spirit  in 
man,  a  spirit  than  can  receive  the  inspiration  of  the 
Almighty,  and  not  simply  forces  and  laws,  there  is 
present  in  him  and  in  the  world,  a  supernatural 
power;  and,  having  this  fact,  we  have  a  right  to  in- 
quire, What  are  the  nature  and  extension  of  that 
power?  We  have,  on  this  supposition,  in  the  world 
two  planes  of  activity,  two  centres  of  construction— 
matter  and  mind;  and  human  history  and  human 
destiny  are  traceable  only  in  their  interaction. 

The  first  consideration  wre  offer  in  favor  of  this 
second  term  in  human  life  is,  that  the  experience  of 
the  race  has  actually  been  wrought  out  under  a  belief 
in  its  truth.  This  is  a  simple  fact,  about  which  there 
^can  be  no  doubt.  The  majority  of  men  have  believed 
in  their  own  independent  power,  and  their  nobler 
-actions  especially  have  owed  their  existence  to  this 
belief.  If,  then,  there  is  no  supernatural  element, 
human  history,  and  that,  too,  in  all  its  higher  and 


10 

holier  forms,  its  most  typical  and  noble  experiences,, 
has  been  wrought  out  by  the  force  of  an  illusion. 
What  is  this  assertion  but  to  say  that  the  false  and 
illusory  have  all  the  power,  and  more  than  the 
power  of  the  true  and  of  the  genuine  !  Science  would 
treat  even  the  instincts  of  animals  with  more  respect 
than  this  denial  implies.  A  general  and  prolonged 
tendency  in  a  race  of  animals  establishes  a  constitu- 
tional force,  and  a  constitutional  force  means  an 
adaptation  to  existing  facts — a  real  relation  to  some 
of  the  conditions  of  the  environment. 

If  a  constitutional  force,  like  that  which  compels 
every  one  of  us  to  believe  daily  that  we  have  a  real 
control  over  things,  and  to  actually  shape  our  lives 
under  that  conviction,  has  no  sufficient  foundation, 
or  is  something  quite  other  than  it  seems  to  be,  then 
nothing  really  valid  or  satisfactory  is  likely  to  be 
saved  from  the  impressions  that  rule  the  human 
spirit;  for  none  of  them  are  more  pervasive  or  per- 
tinacious than  this  one.  It  is  impossible  for  us  to 
believe  that  our  apprehension  of  the  forces  about  us 
and  our  methods  of  using  them,  are  a  part  and  parcel 
of  those  very  forces,  and  retain  any  coherent  notion 
of  human  life. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  the  natural  is  of  no 
worth — has  no  rational  significance  without  the 
supernatural.  The  fixedness  in  things,  the  firmness 
of  physical  laws,  are  simply  an  all-pervasive  obstacle 
to  rational  action,  an  omnipresent  dead-lock,  if  there 
is  no  mind  which  can  both  understand  them  and 
avail  itself  of  them.  Simply  to  know  laws,  with  no> 


11 

power  to  use  them,  to  be  ourselves  only  one  of  their 
innumerable  expressions,  this  is  to  make  knowledge 
the  idle  reflection  of  the  mirror  that  alters  nothing, 
and  waits  on  time  for  its  own  destruction.  The 
thing  in  its  properties,  the  law  in  its  fixedness,  are 
intellectually  significant  only  because  they  can  be 
understood  by  mind  above  them,  and  be  used  by  it. 
Understanding  without  use  is  an  eye  without  any 
power  of  guidance — a  glass-eye ;  an  ear  without 
direction — an  ear-trumpet.  These  manifold  reflec- 
tions of  thought,  these  multiplied  reverberations  of 
feeling,  which  make  the  human  mind  the  great  and 
solemn  temple  of  life,  they  all  perish  in  air,  as  mere 
shadows  in  a  deserted  sanctuary,  if  free  powers  do 
not  truly  follow  with  them  and  after  them,  to  be  and 
to  build  according  to  the  spiritual  material  at  hand. 
Mere  necessity,  mere  fixedness,  the  merely  natural, 
without  the  .contrast  of  the  spontaneous  and  the 
supernatural,  are  dead  things,  frozen  things,  to  be 
left  to  themselves,  like  a  polar  zone.  Both  of  these 
elements,  the  free  and  the  fixed,  must  be  saved,  truly 
saved,  not  saved  by  an  ingenious  trick  of  words,  if 
the  world  is  to  have  any  significance,  is  to  be  an 
arena  of  either  thought  or  action,  if  truth  is  to  dif- 
fer from  falsehood,  right  from  wrong. 

And  this  leads  us  to  our  conclusive  reason  ;  to  ban- 
ish the  supernatural  is  suicidal  to  thought,  and,  there- 
fore, cannot  be  done  by  thought.  If  thought  is  in 
any  way,  no  matter  in  what  way,  obscurely  and  re- 
motely, the  product  of  physical  forces,  the  distinc- 
tion of  the  true  and  the  false  in  thought  is  lost  alto- 


12 

gether.  Events  are  not  true  or  false;  they  are  all 
true,  all  real,  for  true  means  in  this  connection  real. 
So  would  the  most  foolish  judgments  and  illogical 
conclusions  be  real  on  the  supposition  that  they  are 
physical  effects,  and  one  just  as  real  as  another;  pre- 
cisely as  sickness  is  a  much  a  fact  as  health,  and 
insanity  as  sanity.  All  opinions,  no  matter  what 
they  are,  would  rest  back  on  sufficient  physical 
causes,  would  be  as  necessary,  one  as  another ;  as  real, 
one  as  another;  as  true,  one  as  another.  To  distin- 
guish between  them,  therefore,  as  true  or  untrue, 
would  be  like  an  effort  to  distinguish  between  rocks 
and  trees,  or  the  images  in  water,  or  the  actions  of 
birds,  as  true  or  untrue.  The  distinction  is  no  longer 
pertinent.  There  can  be  neither  the  true  nor  the  false, 
save  as  there  is  mind  moving  freely  as  mind  to  recog- 
nize the  division  and  maintain  it  as  one  inherent  in  its 
own  action,  its  own  conclusions,  as  logically  correct  or 
incorrect.  If  then,  the  law  of  truth  is  not  present 
in  the  mind  itself  as  incident  to  its  free  activity,  that 
law  is  nowhere  to  be  found,  since  it  is  not  a  law  of 
facts  as  facts,  but  of  thoughts  as  thoughts.  It  im- 
plies always  that  the  mind  may  at  any  given  time 
think  correctly  or  incorrectly ;  an  assertion  not  true 
of  things  or  of  forces,  since  but  one  possible  move- 
ment at  any  given  moment  belongs  to  them.  Truth? 
in  reference  to  stones  and  birds  and  beasts,  in  refer- 
ence to  all  physical  things,  is  an  unmeaning  distinc- 
tion. It  always  implies  a  spiritual  presence,  work- 
ing from  itself  and  for  itself,  a  statement  to  itself 
of  principles,  correctly  or  incorrectly,  under  an  inner 


intellectual  law.  The  reflection  in  a  stream  is  not 
true  or  untrue  ;  it  may  be  like  or  unlike,  complete 
or  incomplete,  but  no  logic  can  lay  hold  of  it,  no 
morality  can  attach  to  it.  If,  then,  the  mind  denies 
the  spiritual,  the  supernatural  within  itself,  and  falls 
back  on  fixed  physical  forces,  its  own  denial  loses  all 
significance,  as  true  or  untrue,  and  becomes  merely  a 
fact  among  facts,  like  a  headache  or  a  lame  foot  or 
cross  vision.  Science,  therefore,  or  any  other  advo- 
cate of  the  natural  only,  rules  itself  out  of  court 
when  it  presents  its  case  at  the  tribunal  of  reason, 
for  reason  can  only  remain  reason  by  remaining  free- 
free  to  pursue  the  truth,  free  to  .state  it,  free  to  de- 
fend it.  A  science  that  professes  that  any  opinion 
any  man  may  entertain,  is  a  simple  fact  with  suffi- 
cient causes,  has  no  position  at  the  bar  of  reason. 

Our  conclusion  is :  first,  that  we  must  hold  fast 
both  the  natural  and  the  supernatural.  Neither  the 
world  of  thought  nor  the  world  of  action  can  be 
carried  on  without  them.  Without  fixed  facts,  defin- 
ite causes  and  settled  consequences,  reason  has  noth- 
ing to  inquire  into,  nothing  to  know.  But  reason 
itself  must  be  left  free  in  the  inquiry ;  it  must  rise 
above  the  subject-matter  of  discussion  ;  it  cannot  be 
one  among  the  things  fixed  and  settled  by  force,  for 
force  is  not  thought ;  nor  events  a  search  into  events. 
Moreover,  no  possible  advantage  could  ever  arise 
from  the  discussions  of  reason,  if  forces  are  all-per- 
vasive, and  reason  adds  nothing  to  them,  and  alters 
nothing  in  them.  On  this  supposition,  our  mental 
processes  have  no  more  to  do  with  the  progress  of 


14 

events  than  have  the  shadows  of  the  cars  with  the 
motion  of  the  cars.  The  cars  will  move  equally 
well  with  or  without  these  shadows ;  so  the  inner 
physical  forces,  whose  shadows  are  thoughts,  are  self- 
sufficient,  and  reason  as  a  significant  factor,  disap- 
pears from  the  world. 

No  more  can  human  action  proceed  without  both 
of  these  terms,  the  fixed  and  the  flexible.  Nature, 
in  its  firm  laws,  is  a  quarry  from  which  we  take  the 
stone  for  all  our  building.  She  is  the  hilt  and  the 
blade  and  the  true  edge  of  the  sword  which  lies 
ready  to  our  right  hand.  The  hand  is  nothing  if 
there  is  nothing  which  the  hand  can  wield.  How  is 
it  in  dreams  ?  The  unsubstantial  images  come  and  go, 
and  tickle  us  or  torment  us,  with  no  control  on  our 
part.  We  are  often  glad  to  wake  up  to  a  fact,  to 
something  that  can  not  and  will  not  shift  its  physi- 
ognomy, nor  change  from  angel  to  devil  while  we 
look  at  it.  We  know  what  these  facts  are,  what 
nature  is  to  the  mind.  It  is  something  to  stand 
upon,  to  work  with,  to  help  and  to  be  helped  by. 
Yet,  if  we  were  handed  over  to  nature  as  an  abso- 
lutely universal  and  fixed  fact,  we  would  be  no 
better  off. 

If,  in  our  dreams,  all  things  are  fluent  and  so  be- 
yond our  shaping,  on  this  supposition  all  things 
would  be  fast,  and  thus  beyond  our  control.  A  world 
of  adamant  is  too  tough  for  our  chiseling.  No  !  We 
and  nature  must  stand  together  face  to  face,  each 
fully  clothed  with  its  own  attributes,  before  that 
action  and  re-action  can  be  opened  which  makes 
human  history. 


15 

Thus  only  nature  becomes  a  comprehensible  term, 
.a  language  between  mind  and  mind,  man  and  man, 
man  and  God.  Now,  language  must  mean  some- 
thing, and  have  its  laws  of  interpretation,  but  it  can 
not,  in  its  meaning  and  laws,  be  independent  of 
those  who  use  it.  While  it  has  been  shaped  into 
many  significant  forms,  it  must  be  capable  of  being 
shaped  into  many  more.  It  must  lie  between  lip 
and  lip,  pen  and  pen,  and  take  form  as  mind  wills 
it.  So  lies  nature  between  you  and  me,  between  us 
.and  God,  with  its  many  volumes  of  past  thought,  its 
volumes  just  now  issued,  and  its  immeasurable  ma- 
terial for  coming  volumes.  We  cannot  easily  quit 
this  image.  The  natural  is  to  the  supernatural  what 
language  is  to  thought.  Take  the  letters  and  the 
lines,  what  are  they  ?  Nothing,  save  as  the  nimble 
thought,  the  radiant  feeling  have  run  along  them 
and  left  them  as  a  trail  of  light.  One  thing  alone 
has  no  significance  anywhere.  The  significance  of 
the  world  lies  in  the  interplay  of  two  distinct  things, 
matter  and  mind,  the  form  and  the  indwelling  spirit. 

Our  second  conclusion  is  like  our  first.  We  may 
easily  exaggerate  either  of  these  elements,  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural.  The  error  of  the  past  has  been 
to  exaggerate  the  supernatural.  All  things  have 
offered  themselves  as  perfectly  pliant,  either  to  the 
human  will  or  the  divine  will,  and  so  life  has  been  a 
kind  of  a  dream,  a  phantasmagoria,  in  which^  change- 
able images  and  fanciful  influences  have  taken  the 
place  of  things  and  forces  and  laws,  and  so  prayer 
has  gotten  the  upper  hand  of  labor;  fear  and  hope, 


16 

of  counsel ;  and  superstition,  of  reason.  But  this  is 
not  our  present  danger.  The  tide  is  now  out,  and 
has  left,  stranded  and  bare,  these  decaying  hulks  of 
fancy.  The  ocean  has  uncovered  its  slimy  flats,  and 
lodged  its  glutinous  life  in  the  sand,  and  the  hot  sun 
is  evaporating  it.  The  danger  is  with  us,  that  the 
supernatural,  the  spiritual  will  dwindle  and  pale 
before  the  natural,  till  human  life  is  swallowed  up  in 
the  blinding  whirl,  the  weary  ongoing  of  physical 
things,  and  we  open  our  eyes  like  sleepy  children  in 
the  night,  and  soon  close  them  again  with  no  knowl- 
edge whence  we  came  or  whither  we  go. 

Not  till  we  wake  up,  not  till  we  recover  our  own 
inner  life,  and  find  both  the  world  and  ourselves,  are 
we  able  -to  shape  conduct,  to  map  out  a  course  and  to 
pursue  it.  The  natural  presents  to  us  our  problem 
and  its  limitations.  The  supernatural  offers  the  pow- 
ers by  which  we  are  to  work  it  out.  Here  are  the 
ocean  and  the  boat ;  here  the  winds,  the  waves  and 
the  sails  ;  we  ourselves  must  stand  at  the  helm. 

One  more  conclusion  is,  that  if  there  is  this  super- 
natural element  in  man  himself,  then  there  is  both 
room  for  religion  in  the  world,  and  a  clear  foreshad- 
owing of  its  leading  facts.  Surely,  man  is  not  alone 
in  the  possession  of  these  superior  powers,  nor  is  he 
the  root  of  them.  What  the  spirit  of  man  is  to  his 
own  body,  moving  with  an  intangible  touch  over  all 
its  chords,  doing  what  it  thinks  to  do,  and  bearing 
its  own  life  into  every  part,  that,  we  shall  easily  be- 
lieve, we  shall  almost  certainly  believe,  is  the  Divine 
Spirit  to  the  world.  We  shall  refuse  to  think  that 


17 

this  illumination  about  us  comes  from  the  alabaster 
itself,  and  not  from  the  light  behind  it.  We  have 
not  so  understood  the  world  thus  far.  Its  inner 
meanings  have  all  along  enamored  us,  and  now  we 
know  that  light  is  from  light,  life  from  life,  and  the 
transparency  between  us  and  the  Divine  Spirit  takes 
its  true  position  and  artistic  relations. 

It  is  a  mistake,  in  these  great  questions,  to  decide 
them  by  their  accidents  and  their  secondary  facts. 
Much  discussion  is  expended  on  miracles.  Ninety- 
nine  are  exploded  and  the  one  hundredth  is  denied, 
and  there  the  controversy  hangs.  Other  things  must 
be  settled  first.  Is  there  anywhere  in  nature  a  power 
above  nature?  Are  there  two  sets  of  facts  and  laws, 
one  of  matter,  one  of  mind,  which  do  not  measure 
each  other,  but  stand  over  against  each  other  in  per- 
petual contrast  and  interaction  ?  If  we  answer  these 
questions  in  the  negative,  then  certainly  the  miracle 
will  wither  away,  for  its  root,  the  supernatural,  has 
been  cut  off.  If  we  answer  them  in  the  affirmative, 
then  the  cardinal,  constructive  terms  of  the  universe 
contain  the  supernatural,  and  we  are  left  by  careful, 
quiet  and  leisurely  inquiry  to  settle  the  limits  of  its 
activity,  and  the  exact  points  at  which  it  appears. 

Even  while  law  is  ,  interpreted  in  a  very  narrow 
way,  as  a  fixed  order  of  procedure  in  nature,  it  has, 
for  some  minds,  a  sacred,  mystic  force.  Law  is  not 
ultimate ;  reason  only  is  ultimate.  Laws  that  are 
not  each  instant  sustained  by  sufficient  reasons,  have 
for  reason  no  inviolate  authority.  Laws  are  the  pro- 
ducts of  reason,  and  are  addressed  to  reason  ;  reason 


18 

having  shaped  them  as  its  own  servants,  does  not 
abdicate  in  their  favor.  Laws  sprang  out  of  reason, 
and  remain  subject  to  reason  in  their  entire  course. 
If  there  is  any  unchangeableness,  any  fixedness,  it  is 
that  of  reason,  not  that  of  law.  If  laws  are  reason- 
able, they,  must  certainly  submit  themselves  to  the 
claims  of  reason,  and  not  lord  it  over  reason. 

But  if  it  be  said  that  reason,  the  Eternal  Reason, 
is  fixed,  inflexible,  infinitely  firm,  so  may  it  equally 
well  be  said  that  reason,  the  Eternal  Reason,  is  sus- 
ceptible to  every  change  of  condition,  and  changes 
therewith.  The  one  assertion  is  no  more  true  than 
the  other.  If  one  pole  of  thought  shows  the  firm, 
coherent  lines  of  wise  and  unchangeable  relations, 
the  other  pole  equally  reveals  a  minute  and  infinitely 
variable  adaptation  of  special  means  to  special  ends. 
What  are  all  the  innumerable  species  in  life  every- 
where but  specific  purposes  fulfilled  in  a  specific 
way?  Evolution,  movement  forward,  unfolding,  be- 
long pre-eminently  to  reason.  When  reason  should 
cease  to  resolve  itself  into  reasons  in  a  thousand 
forms,  at  a  thousand  points,  or  when  those  reasons, 
each  in  their  own  order,  should  cease  to  be  efficacious, 
the  glory  of  reason  would  have  departed ;  the  uni- 
verse would  have  halted,  and  be,  at  the  very  best, 
like  a  stationary  sun,  burning  forever  in  the  zenith. 

The  grace  of  God  and  his  intervention,  do  not 
imply  a  suspension  of  reason  ;  they  imply  only  a 
new  submission  of  all  terms,  physical  laws  included, 
to  reason.  They  imply  a  presence  of  Power  to  which 
all  things  are  permanently  open,  to  which  nothing 


19 

can  oppose  itself  in  the  simple  stubbornness  of  its 
own  nature;  a  presence  of  Power  from  which  all 
reasons,  all  thoughts,  all  feelings,  may  be  poured  out 
a.s  the  existing  moral  facts  of  the  world.  The  present 
is  built  upon  the  past ;  it  is  not  mortgaged  to  it ;  it 
is  the  growing  fullness  and  freedom  of  all  its  pro- 
cesses. If  there  is  any  one  thing  which  distinguishes 
the  actions  of  mind  from  the  movements  of  matter, 
rational  affections  from  physical  qualities,  it  is  this 
very  thing,  that  they  envelope,  like  an  atmosphere, 
the  special  facts  before  them,  and  respond  to  them  in 
perfect  sympathy.  In  God's  dealings  with  us,  both 
sets  of  attributes  meet,  the  lower  and  the  higher,  the 
firm  and  the  flexible,  the  remoteness  of  law  and  the 
nearness  of  love,  the  natural  and  the  supernatural. 
In  our  anxiety  to  save  the  conditions  of  labor,  let 
us  not  cast  away  that  freedom  of  life  for  which  only 
labor  is  of  any  worth. 

We  have  but  one  other  conclusion  ;  the  solution 
of  the  world  is  with  us,  not  with  the  world.  Bun- 
van  was  right.  The  castle  of  Giant  Despair  can  be 
unlocked,  for  every  man  carries  the  key  of  its  guards 
in  his  own  bosom.  This  is  true  on  the  lower  as  on 
the  higher  plane.  The  impulses  of  intellectual  and 
of  spiritual  growth  are  the  same.  Whatever  may 
be  our  speculations,  the  practical  results  will  be 
small  unless  we  rest  staunchly  back  on  our  own 
thoughts ;  unless  we  are  able  to  make  our  own  in- 
sight the  centre  of  movement  and  basis  of  supply. 
It  is  not  easy  practically  to  have  too  much  self-reli- 
ance, provided  that  it  is  accompanied  by  correspond- 


20 

ing  diligence  of  inquiry  and  sense  of  responsibility. 
Equally  are  the  secrets  of  God  with  us  in  the 
spiritual  kingdom.  There  is  a  spirit  in  man,  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  him  understand- 
ing. Out  of  this  fellowship  of  thought,  we  have 
access  to  the  divine  thought ;  by  these,  our  powers  of 
control,  we  are  made  ready  to  obey.  Sin  is  a  betrayal 
of  ourselves ;  so  is  unwise  scepticism.  Both  dig 
down  the  foundations  of  personal  strength ;  both 
allow  mind  to  succumb  to  matter.  In  both,  we  hes- 
itate, tremble ;  give  way,  before  the  physical  forces 
that  surround  us.  Man  is  not  master,  simply  be- 
cause he  will  not  assert  his  mastery.  God  lets  no 
man  rule  who  is  not  ready  to  rule,  who  is  not  able 
to  rule.  Government  is  a  thing  of  power,  and  when 
the  mind  feels  itself,  when  it  says  comprehensively : 
there  is  a  spirit  in  man,  and  the  inspiration  of  the 
Almighty  giveth  him  understanding;  I  am  full  of 
matter,  and  the  spirit  within  me  constraineth  me; 
then  he  does  understand,  does  rule,  and  becomes 
aware  of  the  currents  of  immortal  life  coursing 
through  him. 

Members  of  the  Graduating  Class :  Among  the 
subjects  of  common  consideration  and  study,  while 
you  have  been  with  us,  none  has  been  more  interest- 
ing than  the  government  of  the  world  in  its  various 
grades  of  law.  Things  are  controlled  by  forces ;  ani- 
mals are  directed  by  appetites ;  men  are  subject  to 
ideas.  It  is  some  conception  of  the  mind  itself,  some 
notion  of  that  which  is  worth  labor,  that  chiefly  call 


21 

out  human  activity.  These  ideas,  which  go  before 
the  minds  of  men  like  guiding  stars,  become  more 
and  more  forceful  with  every  stage  of  civilization. 
If  we  could  look  into  the  minds  of  our  neighbors, 
and  see  the  conceptions  which  they  cherish  of  the 
pleasurable,  of  the  desirable  and  of  the  good,  in 
human  life,  we  should  be  at  once  able  to  map  out 
their  lines  of  labor. 

These  ideas,  whose  force  we  are  all  of  us  feeling— 
for  not  to  feel  them  is  to  drop  to  the  level  of  the 
brute — have  a  safe  impelling  and  directing  power, 
according  to  their  scope  and  their  beneficence.  But 
no  idea  has  more  scope  and  more  beneficence  than 
this  idea  which  we  have  to-day  been  presenting  and 
enforcing — the  conception  of  a  supernatural  power 
in  ourselves,  in  our  fellow-men,  and  in  God,  work- 
ing concurrently  toward  .a  spiritual  kingdom,  a  king- 
dom which  wisdom  and  love  shall  preside  over, 
bringing  into  subjection  to  themselves  and  sending 
forth  for  their  own  uses  all  the  forces  of  nature. 
Hereby  nature  will  find  completion  in  grace,  and 
grace  find  expression  in  nature,  and  so  the  two  king- 
doms, physical  and  spiritual,  concur  in  this  one 
kingdom — the  kingdom  of  heaven.  No  idea,  cer- 
tainly, is  of  equal  scope  with  this  idea;  no  other  idea 
has  in  it  the  same  promise  of  good,  or  offers  an  equiv- 
alent stimulus  to  action.  What  immense  changes  a 
kindred,  though  subordinate  idea,  has  wrought  in 
this  nation !  How  vigorous  and  constructive  it  has 
been,  in  a  degree  not  before  seen  on  the  earth !  Our 
forefathers  conceived  the  notion  of  freedom,  of 


22 

social  action  rooted  in  freedom  of  thought,  and 
working  patiently  and  reverently  under  a  divine 
providence  for  the  common  weal  or  commonwealth, 
and,  as  the  result  of  this  idea,  we  have  reached  a  de- 
gree and  universality  of  prosperity  hardly  dreamed 
of  before  our  time.  Can  this  larger  idea  of  a  king- 
dom of  grace,  watched  over  of  God,  and  labored  for 
by  all  men  for  their  common  salvation,  which,  in  its 
incipiency,  has  built  up  a  nation  like  ours,  fail  in  its 
fullness  to  construct  a  noble  manhood  and  a  noble 
society  of  men  ? 

You  are  sure  to  have  your  ideas  of  life,  and  to  feel 
their  force,  whatever  those  ideas  may  be.  They  may 
be  those  of  honor,  those  of  wealth,  those  of  self- 
interest.  If  so,  you,  as  others,  will  go  swirling  on 
like  leaves  in  an  Autumn  blast.  You  may  rise  high 
in  the  air,  and  linger  long  and  go  far,  but  drop  you 
will,  and  must,  in  due  time,  and  take  your  place 
among  things  dead  and  decaying.  There  is  no  res- 
urrection to  such  impulses.  They  are  personal  and 
perish  with  the  person.  He  only  falls,  as  seed  falls 
into  the  fruitful  soil,  who  holds  in  his  thoughts  the 
hopes  of  a  kingdom,  and  has  gathered  his  labors 
about  a  germinant  idea.  All  that  remains  to  us  of 
any  value  from  the  past  are  steps  of  progress  in  this 
very  direction ;  all  that  we  can  contribute  to  the 
future  is  still  farther  progress  in  this  one  path. 

Let  none  of  us  think  that  we  shall  not  be  judged; 
we,  from  whose  lips  judgment  proceeds  with  every 
breath.  We  judge  all  things.  We  scatter  censure 
and  praise,  acquittal  and  condemnation,  on  every 


23 

side.  We  set  up  our  tribunal  in  every  home,  and  at 
every  street  corner.  As  we  are  full  of  judgment,  so 
shall  we  be  abundantly  judged.  Our  neighbors  will 
judge  us;  events  will  judge  us;  the  truth  of  God 
will  judge  us;  we  shall  ourselves  sharply  judge  our- 
selves ;  and  all  these  judgments  will,  more  and  more, 
concur  in  a  searching  and  final  award.  The  gist  of 
our  condemnation  will  be,  if  judgment  for  us  is  con- 
demnation :  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  not  unto  one  of 
the  least  of  these — the  act  of  good-will — ye  did  it 
not  unto  me.  No  kingdom  of  God  was  in  our 
thoughts,  or  in  our  actions,  or  in  our  hopes.  But 
why  should  there  not  be  such  a  kingdom?  Is  not 
society  as  a  whole  to  become  organic?  Is  it  not  to 
take  to  itself  that  which  is  organically  obedient,  and 
to  cast  out  that  which  is  disobedient?  And  what  do 
sin  and  selfishness  express  but  separation  and  diso- 
bedience ;  and  holiness  and  love,  but  union  and  obe- 
dience? With  what  terrible  energy  does  society, 
divinely  ordained,  from  time  to  time,  fling  out  from 
itself,  clean  over  the  brink  of  life,  some  criminal, 
irreconcilable  with  the  common  weal !  This  act  is 
prophetic  of  that  deeper,  more  thorough,  more  com- 
plete discrimination  which  society  shall  institute 
with  advancing  years,  taking  to  itself  that  which  is 
nutriment  to  its  higher  life,  and  casting  from  itself 
as  refuse  that  which  offers  to  it  no  ministration, 
either  as  spiritual  food  or  as  spiritual  force. 

We  wish,  exceedingly,  that  you,  in  whom  our  labors 
are  now  fulfilled,  shall  lead  noble  lives — lives  profit- 
able to  others  and  so  profitable  to  yourselves ;  lives 


24 

that  shall  be  large  partakers  in  human  hopes.  We 
believe  that  the  productive  ideas  under  which  alone 
such  lives  can  spring  up  are  those  of  power  and  re- 
sponsibility within  yourselves,  power  and  responsibil- 
ity within  society,  a  divine  power  and  purpose 
working  with  men  and  for  men,  a  supernatural  per- 
vasive of  the  natural,  and  shaping  it  to  higher  and 
holier  ends.  You  have  learned  with  us  something 
concerning  the  natural ;  you  have  learned  that  you 
can  make  it  minister  to  the  supernatural,  and  now 
what  we  crave  above  all  things  as  the  completion  of 
all  things,  is  that  you  may  hold  within  yourselves  a 
clear  and  sufficient  idea  of  that  higher  life  which  is 
hidden  with  Christ  in  God  ;  that  the  light  of  this 
idea  may  reveal  to  you  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it 
in  behalf  of  that  kingdom  of  grace,  which  is  being 
built  with  each  advancing  year. 

As  the  eye  of  a  friend  is  to  us  an  open  portal  into 
his  spiritual  life,  so  may  the  gates  of  inspiration,  and 
of  knowledge  and  of  insight  that  lie  between  the 
visible  and  the  invisible  stand  ajar  for  you,  flooding 
your  minds  with  the  light  of  years  yet  to  be.  Nature, 
the  world,  the  universe,  in  their  robes  of  beautiful, 
pure  and  priestly  ministration,  do  but  little  for  us,  if 
they  furnish  food  for  the  body  merely.  We  stand  in 
fitting  union  with  nature  only  as  we  know  something 
of  its  spirit  of  knowledge  and  its  emotional  life.  If 
we  attain  to  the  beauty  of  the  world,  we  have  entered 
the  fellowship  of  art;  if  we  apprehend  its  truths,  we 
belong  to  the  sacred  guild  of  science  ;  if  it  bring  to  us 
a  revelation  of  holiness,  we  are  of  the  brotherhood 


25 

of  religion  ;  if  it  blend  for  us  the  beautiful,  the  true 
and  the  good,  in  one  overpowering  vision,  we  have 
become  the  sons  of  God.  But  if  our  spirits  are 
in  wrapt  neither  with  the  beauty,  nor  the  truth,  nor 
the  righteousness  of  the  world,  what  part  have  we 
in  it? 

We  have  led  you  thus  far.  At  this  bound  we  part. 
But  in  doing  so  we  commend  you  to  the  spirit  of 
truth,  the  Divine  Spirit,  that  makes  the  world  the 
temple  of  God,  and  each  human  heart  a  shrine  of 
worship.  We  would  not  leave  you,  full  of  hopes  and 
fears  and  affections,  to  a  purposeless,  passionless,  im- 
personal nature,  but  to  a  world  pulsating  in  its  every 
event  with  a  Divine  Life.  May  this  life  be  to  you 
as  a  shepherd  to  the  flock,  leading  you  forth  and 
returning  you  in  safety,  enfolded  and  folded  in  the 
universe  of  God. 


